Amazon Reportedly Makes Offer to Buy "Netflix of Europe"

If a report from Reuters is accurate, Amazon has made an offer to buy European video rental service Lovefilm for about £200 million ($312 million). Neither company has confirmed the offer.

Lovefilm offers both DVD and game rental, as well as online video rental. It also has content like movie news and film reviews.

Amazon already owns a stake in Lovefilm, and an acquisition would give the company another asset in competing with other video rental services like Netflix.

According to Ryan Lawler at NewTeeVee, Lovefilm is already known as the "Netflix of Europe". He writes, "While Amazon is unlikely to begin a DVD-by-mail service in the U.S., acquiring Lovefilm could give it the domain expertise necessary to do so, and it already has the warehouse and shipping infrastructure needed if it chose to launch an assault against Netflix here."

You can expect YouTube to start making a bigger mark in this area too, at least in the online video realm. YouTube just got a new Global Head of Content and a new Global Head of TV and Film Entertainment (the latter actually coming from Netflix).

Meanwhile, Netflix is doing all it can to stay ahead of the curve. It recently released a new iPhone app (with Android on the way). It recently announced a new deal to stream first-run theatrical releases, as well as plans to go international (starting in Canada).